Sometimes when I activate a window with keyboard commands, like Alt-Tab or Win, the mouse cursor will jump to the middle of the newly activated window. I have searched my mouse control panel and TweakUI for options that might activate this without any success.

Does anyone know how I can make this stop? It's driving me nuts.

I have an IBM/Lenovo 800dpi ScrollPoint Optical with the Lenovo MouseSuite v5.03.8 drivers. I have X-Mouse activation (but not raise) enabled via TweakUI. It's an IBM laptop that also has a trackpoint and a touchpad, with the UltraNav drivers loaded.

The Snap To option is off?

I don't see any option labeled "Snap To" in my Mouse Control Panel. There are a variety of other ones that seem to have a similar purpose. None of them are enabled.

He means, control panel, mouse, pointer options, "Automatically move the pointer to the default button in a dialog box".

That, of course, is for the main Windows mouse driver. If it's not enabled there, then somehow there's a third-party program running (perhaps from the manufacturer of the trackpad or clitmouse) that's got the same option enabled.

Hmm. They must have renamed it in Vista. I don't have an XP machine handy at the moment to check.

Yeah, that's not checked. Also, it's not dialog boxes, and it jumps to the apparent center of the window, not to any button.

There is a more common windows way to set this. I've forgotten where it is.

Here is the PowerToys TweakUI screen.

You got something like VNC installed? I had odd problems with my cursor in XP once because the drivers it uses to hook into the system were buggy.

That's not it, either. That prevents background applications from activating themselves. I'm specifically activating an application and it warps the cursor to the window.

I do have UltraVNC installed. I'll try uninstalling it and see what happens.

It's looking like it's a "feature" of X-Mouse. Not sure why I've never noticed it on any other computer.

Now I guess I have to decide if I want a stable mouse cursor or effortless window activation.

Surely if it's a feature, it's one that could be disabled?

Edit: I mean if it's a sub-feature of the X-mouse feature, maybe there is a way to disable it, even if it means hand-editing a registry entry?

There are two bits in the Registry that control this feature. One turns activation on and off; the other turns autoraise on and off. I have the former on, the latter off.

I fscking hate that option, you can tell at work whether a certain member of my team has been on a computer as that option is always enabled. It annoys me so much as I instinctively move the mouse down to the button to find the pointer on the screen has now dropped off the bottom of the window.